Nvidia in 10-15% GPU price hike as production costs surge on tariffs

Nvidia has quietly raised prices across nearly its entire product lineup, hiking gaming GPUs by as much as 10% and AI accelerators by up to 15%, as the chipmaker grapples with mounting headwinds from US tariffs, export curbs, and surging “Made in America” manufacturing costs.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed additional levies on imports of Chinese-made goods, while also tightening export controls on high-end AI chips, reportedly putting a strain on the chip making giant.

Nvidia increases prices across chip segments

In its first quarter , Nvidia absorbed a roughly $5.5 billion earnings hit after being barred from shipping its H20 AI processors to China, a key growth market.

Facing the dual squeeze of broad tariff hikes and export constraints, CEO Jensen Huang has spent the past few months hoping between Washington, DC, and Beijing, lobbying to soften the blow to the company’s bottom line. Huang has urged the Trump administration to ease the export restrictions.

Despite these efforts, the firm has concluded that the only way to maintain stable operating margins is to pass much of the added cost burden on to end users. In mid-April, Nvidia reportedly quietly raised its official list prices for almost every desktop and data-center GPU it sells.

Gaming cards in the GeForce series saw increases ranging from 5% on entry-level models to as much as 10% on flagship variants, while the prices of high-throughput H200 and B200 AI accelerators climbed by 15%.

Partners and channel resellers have followed suit, with some custom RTX 5090 boards already trading north of $3,300—a full 10% above their initial launch prices.

The price uptick also reflects the steep cost of shifting production of Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell chips to TSMC’s Arizona fabrication plant. Under a push for domestic semiconductor manufacturing, TSMC’s US fab network has rapidly sold out its capacity, but at a roughly 30% premium over its Taiwan sites.

Industry sources report that higher wages, increased logistics spending, and more expensive materials in Arizona have collectively driven up wafer-fabrication costs by double digits.

Nvidia may be forced to review prices again

Nvidia was among the first of its major customers, alongside AMD and Apple, to reserve capacity in TSMC’s new US fabs. Company executives have signalled that they anticipate further cost creep as US chipmakers expand local production to comply with the CHIPS Act , meaning that today’s price adjustments may only be the first of several.

While gamer outrage over rising graphics-card prices has been palpable on social media, the broader market remains resilient. Cloud-service providers, hyperscalers and enterprise customers have maintained strong demand for AI-trained hardware, drawn by persistent shortages and the inability of supply to keep pace with exponential growth in machine-learning workloads. That, in turn, has allowed Nvidia to lean on its premium pricing strategy without materially denting overall shipment volumes.

Indeed, internal forecasts indicate that, despite the hikes, Nvidia’s second-quarter revenues and profits should still come in at the top end of its guidance range.

The company’s results, due May 28, will be closely scrutinized for signs of fading demand in China, but analysts predict that buoyant spending outside the Middle Kingdom, especially among North American and European data centers, will help offset lost sales from export curbs.

Nvidia’s latest pricing manoeuvre underscores a broader realignment in the semiconductor industry. As governments push for localized chip production, firms must weigh the strategic benefits of onshore manufacturing against significantly higher unit costs. Tariff regimes and geopolitical tensions have turned supply-chain resilience into a premium, but one that comes with a price tag ultimately passed down to consumers, from PC enthusiasts to billion-dollar cloud deployments.

For Nvidia , the calculus is clear: protect profitability and preserve the R&D war chest needed to stay ahead in the fierce race for AI leadership. For customers, it means accepting steeper price tags on the very hardware that has become the beating heart of next-generation compute. And for the industry at large, it marks yet another chapter in the evolving saga of where, and at what cost, the world’s most advanced chips will be made.

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